Category: psych pop

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Babe Rainbow Shares Laid Back and Slinky “Like cleopatra”

For the members of acclaimed Aussie psych outfit Babe Rainbow — Angus Dowling, Jack “Cool-Breeze” Crowther and Dr. Elliott “Love Wisdom” O’Reilly — their character of their home, Australia’s idyllic Gold Coast permeates the dreamlike, joyful, psychedelic music they create together.

The trio grew up in Rainbow Bay and relocated to Bryon Bay, a breathtakingly beautiful place, where the waves are always strong, the magic mushrooms grow freely and old, abandoned farm buildings are plentiful. It’s the perfect locale for young dudes to play music as loud as they want.

The Aussie psych outfit jammed tirelessly in abandoned shacks, and as their sound began to develop, they booked shoes in Brisbane where they crossed paths with JOVM mainstays King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, who began to book the the band as an opener at their shows. The connection turned out to be fortuitous for the members of Babe Rainbow, who then signed to the Gizz’s Flightless label for 2015’s self-titled EP. 2017’s self-titled full-length debut, was produced by the Gizz’s Stu Mackenzie. The album established a loyal following for the band, one which has grown since its release.

Babe Rainbow’s sixth album Slipper Imp and Shakerator is slated for an April 4, 2025 release through King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s P(DOOM) Records. The album was recorded on an old banana farm, where they worked alongside friend and producer Timon Martin and Miles Myjavec on percussion and flute. The roots of the album’s material frequently lay in riffs and figures dreamed up by the band’s Jack Crowther,. “‘Cool Breeze’ has always got something going on,” Babe Rainbow’s Angus Dowling says. “He’s always keen to jam, and Timon’s so good with helping to realise the potential of a song.”

The key this time was not to overwork these early ideas, to give them space “to flow, to grow,” he continues. “Keeping a loose feeling to the music is so important. An idea develops together outside but it doesn’t take its wings until you take it into the studio. We experiment with synths and drum machines and overdubs, and we love that, but we never wanna escape too far from the hippie power of the music. We’re made of rainbow.”

Dowling jokes that Silpper imp and shakerator is a celebration of all the colors of the Babe Rainbow — the milk. “I love the fact that, with all the touring and the changing tides, and hair, the creative relationship within the band still feels so strong. I feel so lucky to have this psychedelic family, which is really the essence of the band. We’re just a bunch of laid back surfers, cattlemen’s sons.”

Slipper imp and shakerator may arguably be the band’s most “homegrown” effort to date. Sonically, the album is a bunch of breezy, acid-tinged pop that sees the band following their own North Star, chasing subtle, slippery, subterranean grooves. The album’s second and latest single “Like cleopatra” is anchored around a slinky yet laid-back, 1980s-era Prince/The Gap Band/The Whispers-like groove, complete with Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar lines.

“When our neighbor Tam’s cows dried themselves up, and we had to wait for one of the cows named Mary to have her calf to have fresh milk, we were buying ‘Cleopatra’s Bath Milk.’ This might explain the theme of ‘Like cleopatra.’ Drink deep or taste not,” says the band. “The song reminds us of the natural spring outside Julian [Abbott]’s studio where we’d naturally congregate when the sun was at its zenith early into a day’s recording session. We’d stretch; take coffee and fruit. It’s a sweet spot to enjoy the Nature sprites and spirits. Why is everything so nice? We found our Cleopatra in Camille [Jansen] who kindly sang backing vocals on the album. She has a definite ancient Egyptian aristocratic air to her coolness. Cheers to the rhythm of life.” 

The video by Sam Kristofski is split between footage of the band frolicking and enjoying nature around their hometown of Bryon Bay, the band jamming out in the studio — but with a fittingly trippy nature.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays South of France Shares Breezy and Introspective “Little Thoughts”

Led by Denver-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and creative mastermind Jeff Cormack, South of France is an indie pop project that sees Cormack and collaborators specializing in a groovy, beat-driven take on escapist, vacation pop. 

With South of France, Cormack has had his work featured in a number of smash-hit TV shows like Bojack Horseman and Shameless while receiving praise from American Songwriter, NPR, Rolling Stone and others. The Denver-based project has also opened for a list of acclaimed acts including Portugal. The Man, Young The Giant, Flaming Lips, Michigander and others.

Cormack’s forthcoming South of France album My Spirit Animal, My Baggage is reportedly one-part solo album and one-part collaborative effort with a series of vocalists, emcees and musicians. The album will feature two previously released singles:

  • “Universal Order,” a a heady yet accessible synthesis of psych pop, world music and hip-hop that’s crowd-pleasing and summery that also features Bilingual (Francophone/Anglophone) emcee Big Samir, who is one-half of The Reminders delivers a swaggering verse for the song’s hallucinogenic bridge and break. 

  • “Something That You Said” a lysergic, blissed out bit of Tame Impala-like pop that serves s a lush and woozy bed for  Big Samir and CRL CRRLL to trade swaggering bars and dreamily soulful falsetto vocals. 

  • “Weekend Lover” is a blissed-out lysergic tune featuring a propulsive and rubbery groove, lush and swirling shoegazer-like textures and ethereal vocals from longtime collaborator, Little Trips‘ Greg Laut that’s a warm and nostalgic blast of summer

The album’s latest single “Little Thoughts” continues a run of material sounds as though it draws from Currents-era Tame Impala, JOVM mainstays POND and GUM with the song anchored around a lush and woozy production featuring enormous 808-like thump, skittering beats, bursts of spacey sounds, strummed guitar and buzzing video game-like synths paired with dreamy falsetto vocals. And yet, “Little Thoughts” fittingly may be the most introspective song off the album to date.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: South of France Teams Up with Little Trips’ Greg Laut on Breezy and Lysergic “Weekend Lover”

Led by Denver-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and creative mastermind Jeff Cormack, South of France is an indie pop project that sees Cormack and collaborators specializing in a groovy, beat-driven take on escapist, vacation pop. 

With South of France, Cormack has had his work featured in a number of smash-hit TV shows like Bojack Horseman and Shameless while receiving praise from American Songwriter, NPR, Rolling Stone and others. The Denver-based project has also opened for a list of acclaimed acts including Portugal. The Man, Young The Giant, Flaming Lips, Michigander and others.

Cormack’s forthcoming South of France album My Spirit Animal, My Baggage is reportedly one-part solo album and one-part collaborative effort with a series of vocalists, emcees and musicians. The album will feature two previously released singles:

  • “Universal Order,” a a heady yet accessible synthesis of psych pop, world music and hip-hop that’s crowd-pleasing and summery that also features Bilingual (Francophone/Anglophone) emcee Big Samir, who is one-half of The Reminders delivers a swaggering verse for the song’s hallucinogenic bridge and break.

  • “Something That You Said” a lysergic, blissed out bit of Tame Impala-like pop that serves s a lush and woozy bed for Big Samir and CRL CRRLL to trade swaggering bars and dreamily soulful falsetto vocals. 

My Spirit Animal, My Baggage‘s latest single “Weekend Lover” is a blissed-out lysergic bop featuring a propulsive, rubbery groove paired with lush, swirling textures, twinkling keys and ethereal vocals from longtime collaborator Little Trips‘ Greg Laut. While being a warm and breezy summery blast, “Weekend Lover” may arguably be the trippiest yet most hook-driven song of the forthcoming album to date.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Terrain Vague Shares Breezy “Funambule”

French indie duo Terrain Vague — Marion and Valentin — can trace their origins back to when the pair met at a party in Southern France. During that party, the pair talked about their common passions for Michel Berger, Haruomi Hosono, Elli and Jacno, Bonnie Banane, Véronique Sanson and André Breton’s poetry.

The following day, they texted with each other with “our duo should be called Terrain Vague.”

Terrain Vague’s latest single “Funambule,” is a breezy and mischievous synthesis of krautorck, psychedelia, 70s library music and tropicalia featuring glistening and arpeggiated analog synths, a fluttering flute line, bursts of angular guitar and a propulsive, motorik-meets-70s am rock-like groove paired with dreamy vocal melodies and harmonies singing lyrics inspired by the board game Snakes and Ladders. While sonically “Funambule” may draw comparisons to Laure Briard, Corridor, Pavo Pavo, and others, with a hint of wistful nostalgia, the song as the duo explains is inspired by the a member’s father, a former clown and magician, who spent his life walking a fine line.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Babe Rainbow Shares Breezy and Deceptively Upbeat “Long Live The Wilderness”

Acclaimed Aussie psych outfit Babe Rainbow — Angus Dowling, Jack “Cool Breeze Crowther, Elliot “Dr. Love Wisdom” O’Reilly and Miles Myjavec — recently signed to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard‘s newly minted p(doom) records imprint. And to celebrate the occasion, the Aussie quartet shared their latest single, the Timon Martin-produced, Stu Mackenzie-mixed, sun-soaked and breezy bop “Long Live The Wilderness.”

But underneath the twinkling, reverb-drenched keys, the 70s AM rock-inspired guitar work, dusty beats and the incredibly catchy, danceable hooks, “Long Live The Wilderness” contemplates the changing of the seasons, the time rushing by, and in turn, the transient nature of everything we know and experience. All things pass, y’all. Seasons change, and we come and go like the tides.

“Hey mama, space brother, sleeptravellor [sic], dream walker. We’re keeping it indie and joining p(doom). Recorded a special session in Mullum Creek with my bruddhas, my fav record we’ve done so far,” Babe Rainbow’s frontman Angus Dowling says. “The song is a celebration of the sheer beauty of the lush Hinterland landscape, in Autumn time in particular. A stream (burn) racing down the hillside, going over a waterfall, and then passing across a dark pool, shaded by the great high hills (fells) that surround it,” Dowling continues. “The major theme of the song is the loss of innocence, which is reflected through Babe Rainbow’s reaction to the changing seasons and realization of the transient nature of life. The constellation symbolizes the carefree perspective of childhood as nature transitions from the vibrancy of life in summer . It asks a good question. What is your view of it?: ‘What would the world be like if there were only towns? If there was no wilderness left to us?’”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Spaceface Share Woozy Cover of “Bittersweet Symphony”

Spaceface — co-founders Jake Ignalls and Eric Martin, along with touring members Marina Aguirre (bass) and Garet Powell (drums) — formed back in 2012. And since their formation, the self-professed “retro-futuristic dream rock outfit” have […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Silver Relics Share Hook-Driven, Jangle Pop-like “Blood Is Blood”

Founded by singer/songwriter Alex Sepassi back in 2017, New York-based indie outfit Silver Relics quickly established a sound that effortlessly blended classic and modern rock influences that ranged from the likes of The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Nirvana on their full-length debut, 2019’s Generic.

The New York-based outfit’s latest single “Blood Is Blood” sees the band gently expanding their sound with the inclusion of jangle pop in a way that reminds me a bit of Montréal-based JOVM mainstays Elephant Stone. And much like Elephant Stone’s work, “Blood Is Blood” is anchored around an uncanny knack for razor sharp, remarkably catchy hooks and smart songwriting. The song’s effortless nature belies a slick yet workman-like craftsmanship.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Animal Scream Teams Up with Ames Harding & The Mirage on a Breezy and Hook-Driven Bop

Pittsburgh-based duo Animal Scream — Chad Monticue and Josh Sickels — specialize in combining psych pop with a sound design-driven aesthetic that manages to be dark and cinematic, a noir-tinted sound in thrall to the eternal groove.

The duo’s second album, last year’s Heartbroke Motel saw the duo building upon the shimmering noir-ish textures of their debut, 2020’s Nightwalk but while pushing the band’s sound into new directions with the material drawing from some eclectic influences like David Lynch, MF DOOM and 60s reggae. The result is an album that saw the Pittsburgh-based duo carving out nocturnal soundscapes for the alienated and broken-hearted.

The duo’s latest single “Sandinista Smile” is a collaboration with Ames Harding & The Mirage. Anchored around a trippy and infectious Tame Impala-like groove, incredibly catchy hooks, swelling strings, glistening synths and skittering beats, the hypnotic production serves as a lush and dreamy bed for Ames Harding’s yearning falsetto. And while being a breezy and summery bop, “Sandinista Smile” as the duo explain is “about letting go, if only for a moment to celebrate the beautiful times with the special ones you love. During these messed up times, that seems more important than ever.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Montréal’s Wizaard Returns with Languid and Trippy “OMG (son style me désole)”

Montréal-based psych pop outfit Wizaard — currently, Marie Hèléne Coutu and Jean-Nicholas Doss — quickly became mainstays of the French Canadian city’s psych, Anglophone and bilingual music scenes with the release of their first two albums, 2016’s Starfish Buffet and 2019’s Supernatural Mystics while going through a series of lineup changes.

The Montréal-based outfit supported both of those albums with shows and tours with Choses Sauvages, Men I Trust, JOVM mainstays Le Couleur and  Elephant Stone, and American outfit Twin Peaks. Adding to a growing profile, the trio’s remix of Spaceface‘s “Timeshare” has amassed over one-million Spotify streams.

The trio’s third album will be released by Lisbon Lux Records, and the album will be the first album of material written and sung primarily in French. The album reportedly will be “a delicious cocktail of madness, eclecticism and groove,” the band explains. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about “DVD vidéo,” a song anchored around a languid and lysergic groove that brings Tame Impala, L’imperatrice and Pavo Pavo to mind, paired with dreamily coquettish vocals and boom bap-like beats, The result is a song that evokes a remarkably pleasant psilocybin-induced trip. 

The album’s latest single “OMG (son style me désole),” translates into English as “OMG (I’m sorry about his style),” and is anchored around twinkling synth arpeggios, a wobbling bass line and dusty gated reverberated beats and incredibly catchy hooks serving as a lush and dreamy bed for coquettish and ethereal vocals. The result is a song that reminds me a bit of a hook-driven synthesis of JOVM mainstays MUNYA, Kainalu, and Pavo Pavo

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay MAGON Shares Nick Drake-like “Portobello’s On The Run”

Over the course of the past handful of years, I’ve spilled copious amounts of virtual ink covering the remarkably prolific, Israeli-born, Costa Rican-based singer/songwriter, musician and JOVM mainstay MAGON. The JOVM mainstay’s recently released eighth […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: South of France Teams up with BIg Samir and CRL CRRLL on Woozy and Swaggering “Something That You Said”

Led by Denver-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer Jeff Cormack,  South of France is an indie pop project that sees Cormack and his collaborators specializing in a groovy, beat-driven take on escapist, vacation pop.

South of France has had material featured in smash-hit TV shows like Bojack Horseman and Shameless — and they’ve received praise from American Songwriter, NPR, Rolling Stone and others. Adding to a growing profile, South of France has opened for a number of acclaimed acts including Portugal The Man, Young The Giant, Flaming Lips, Michigander and a lengthy list of others. 

Cormack’s latest South of France single “Something That You Said” is a lysergic and blissed out bit of pop featuring a supple and propulsive bass line, skittering hi-hat driven drum patterns, spaced out and atmospheric synths and electronics paired with incredibly catchy hooks. The production serves as a lush and woozy bed for Big Samir and CRL CRRLL to trade swaggering bars and dreamily soulful falsetto vocals.

While sounding like a mischievous take on Tame Impala, “Something That You Said” will appear on Cormack’s forthcoming album My Spirit Animal, My Baggage, an album that’s one part solo album, one part collaborative effort with a series of vocalists, emcees and more. “‘Something That You Said,” as Cormack says “is a great example of how fun these collaborations are getting. Everyone is really having fun with these songs and I’m really enjoying pushing the production into new places while keeping it fun and trying not to over complicate it.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Los Bitchos Share Blissed Out Beach Bop “Don’t Change”

Acclaimed London-based instrumental outfit and JOVM mainstays Los Bitchos — Australian-born, Serra Petale (guitar); Uruguayan-born Agustina Ruiz (keytar); Swedish-born, Josefine Jonsson (bass) and London-born Nic Crawshaw (drums) — can trace their origins to meeting at various late-night parties and through mutual friends. Inspired by their individual members’ different upbringings and backgrounds, the acclaimed British outfit have firmly established a genre-blurring, retro-futuristic sound that playfully blends elements of Peruvian chica, Argentine cumbia, Turkish psych, surf rock, and the music each individual member grew up with: 

  • The Uruguayan-born Ruiz had a Latin-American music collection that the members of the band fell in love with

  • The Swedish-born Jonsson “brings a touch of out of control pop,” her bandmates often joke

  • Aussie-born Petale is deeply inspired by her mother’s 70s Anatolian rock records

  • And the London-born Crawshaw played in a number of local punk bands before joining Los Bitchos

“Coming from all these different places,” Los Bitchos’ Serra Petale says, “it means we’re not stuck in one genre and we can rip up the rulebook a bit when it comes to our influences.”

The JOVM mainstays’ Alex Kapranos-produced, critically applauded, full-length debut, 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin! was recorded at Gallery Studios, and saw the band cementing their reputation for crafting playful, lysergic yet party friendly grooves. 

The quartet capped off a breakthrough year with two Serra Petale and Javier Weyler-co-produced singles “Tip Tapp” and “Los Chrismos,” their first Christmas-themed composition. Fittingly, “Los Chrismos” is a celebratory party-starting romp built around a psych rock-inspired, dexterous and looping guitar line, atmospheric synths, cumbia rhythms paired with holiday appropriate cheers and shouts. Simply put, the song is a much-needed hope and joy bomb in desperate, uneasy time. 

Building upon a growing profile internationally, the London-based JOVM mainstays released 2023’s PAH! EP, a two-track effort that featured a mischievously, rowdy and downright boozy cover of The Champs‘ oft-covered “Tequila,” a song that has become a fan favorite during the band’s live shows and a reworking of King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard‘s “Trapdoor.” 

Today, the London-based instrumental outfit announced that their highly anticipated sophomore album, the Oli Barton-Wood-produced Talkie Talkie is slated for an August 30, 2024 release through City Slang. Deriving its name from a fictional club of the same name, Talkie Talkie is a late-night paradise, brimming with freedom and possibility; a place where partygoers can escape reality by getting caught in the groove and dancing it all away or daydream along to the invigorating soundscape.

Recorded over a short but intense month-long series of sessions at London’s RAK Studios and Lightship 95, sonically, the album will transport the listener into a world where funk, disco, Latin and Turkish rhythms collide in a euphoric fusion fueled by adventurous experimentation and their endearingly puckish spirit. If 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin was the rowdy build up to the big night out with your homies, Talkie Talkie is the equivalent of rocking out to the groove on the dance floor.

The album’s material is anchored in a vivid cinematic universe that takes inspiration from the band’s favorite aesthetic era — the ’80s. Think less self-serious men, gated reverb and more campy, hi-fi pop songwriting that glistens with moxie and verve. The quartet especially wanted to tap into the sonic innovation of the period, where analog and digital techniques collided to create polished texture and depth.

The album will feature the previously released “La Bomba,” a hook-driven 80s Turkish psych pop-inspired bop anchored around a shuffling dance floor rhythm, a twangy and looping guitar line, a disco-influenced bass line, some video game-like beats paired with glistening synths and ecstatic shouts. “‘La Bomba’ is a burst of energy and power! It’s just such a fun song – we started playing it at festivals last summer and the energy felt so good!” The band says in press notes. 

“The beginning stabs are what came to me (Serra) first as I was cooking in my kitchen. There’s something quite heroic and powerful about the opening guitar tone and the stabs underneath them. The twangy guitar tone cuts through the chaotic landscape of claps, pumping disco bassline and dreamy swirling synth sounds. The disco era influence is quite evident in this song, and I think the bassline sets the tone perfectly for this. Structurally the song delivers straight into a chorus (as Nile Rodgers said, ‘why wait?’). We wanted to keep this as close to a classic pop structure as possible, everything straight to the point. 

“The cherries on top are the little ping pong drum sounds (think Ring My Bell, Anita Ward) – they just make the track go off and totally emulate the feelings of euphoria and pure energy running through it.”

Talkie Talkie’s second and latest single “Don’t Change” is a breezy and blissful jam anchored around a languid and reverb-drenched Spanish-tinged, psych rock-inspired guitar line, stomping percussion, glistening and atmospheric synths and an arpeggiated, funky synth bass line. It’s the perfect soundtrack for frolicking at the beach, of dreaming of heading to the beach with your best pals — or for riding a ferry and dreaming that you were on a super expensive yacht drinking mimosas.

Directed by Tom Mitchell, the accompanying video for “Don’t Change” is a deliriously fun joy bomb that captures the band — fittingly — frolicking in paradise while seemingly on vacation. Can I join y’all?

“‘Don’t Change’ is a pure bliss track; think holiday vibes with ice creams, beach balls, sunsets and margaritas,” the band says of the song and its accompanying video. “It’s feel-good, with sun soaked melodies, vibrant arpeggiator synth bass, and layers of percussion. We had such a fun time making the video, making up little dances and frolicking about in the sand and sea!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Calgary’s Sleepkit Shares Woozily Hallucinogenic “Oxygen on the Autobahn”

Calgary-based outfit SLEEPKIT — co-founders Chad VanGaalen’s Ghostkeeper‘s and Plant City Band’s Ryan Bourne and Texture Twins‘ Marie Sulkowski along with newest members Alvvays‘ and Ghostkeeper’s Eric Hamelin (drums) and Crystal Eyes’ and Plant City Band’s Joleen Toner — can trace its origins back to when its co-founders were members in the fellow outer limits leaners Devonian Gardens, whose two albums allowed the pair to find their own patch of common ground.

With SLEEPKIT, Bourne and Sulkowski eschewed Devonian Gardens stylistically wide-ranging arpparoch in a favor of a streamlined sound that pairs textural inventiveness and zoned playing techniques with the immediacy and approachability of dance music. Their full-length debut, 2016’s Champion Weekend was a slick blend of sunshiny dream pop, post-disco and psychedelic synth pop/synth rock with nods to Giorgio Moroder, The Stooges and ELO. (Yeah, I know that sounds kinda wild, doesn’t it?)

Bolstered by the additions of Hamelin and Toner, the band’s long-awaited Scott “Monty” Munro-produced sophomore album Camp Emotion is a reportedly a deeply-nuanced and emotionally refinement of their brand of experimental pop that sees them exploring the outer edges of songwriting and creation, functioning as a dance floor friendly soundtrack as much as it does as a hazy, late-night headphone session through inner space.

Camp Emotion’s first single “Oxygen on the Autobahn” is a woozily hallucinogenic, dance floor and headphone friendly bop anchored around reverb-soaked thump, buzzing synths and a trance-inducing groove. The result is a song that seemingly channels a mind-melting synthesis of Evil Heat-era Primal Scream and deep house.

The accompanying video by the band’s Joleen Toner with tiles by the band’s Ryan Bourne features the band’s members surrounded in a glitchy VHS tape haze, sine waves and cosmic imagery superimposed over cars driving on a highway. Fittingly trippy for a trippy song.